The Eleven Percent Solution

It seems appropriate, on this last day of the major league baseball season, to ponder the difference between success and failure, two terms that get thrown around a lot in sports and business.

The New York Yankees are having a successful season so far. They are likely to end up winning 98 baseball games this year if they hold on to the lead they have right now. They lost 64 games. If you think about it, that’s a lot of games to lose.

The Cleveland Indians will not be in the playoffs and I suspect some of their fans would not consider their season successful. They won 80 games so far, and lost 81. Even Steven…

What’s interesting about that to me is that the difference in wins between the Yankees and the Indians is a mere 18 more games won by the Yankees. Over the course of 162 games and six grueling months, that amounts to eleven percent more games won by a “successful” team over a “failure.” Not a lot.

Coincidentally, I was also at a panel discussion last night about innovation. One of the questions from the audience was “do you celebrate failure?” Good question! I was a bit surprised by the answer, which was pretty much “no we don’t.” I thought perhaps the speaker would wax eloquently about how important it was to coddle your team and accept interim defeats. But no! I think the gist of the response was that, although you have to learn from mistakes and continually correct your course, just because you’re innovating doesn’t mean you have to expect, tolerate, or celebrate failure.

So here are my questions:

Do you think the Cleveland Indians are popping champagne tonight?

Do you think the Yankees high-fived each other in the clubhouse after one of their 64 losses?

Does you think that the most successful sports teams get angry when they lose and use it as motivation to go out the next day and kick some butt?

Does your team or organization hate to lose?

Do you think that anyone on your team believes that an 11% improvement in their results, however they are measured, would mean the difference between success and failure?